Gabriele Basilico Italian, 1944-2013

Gabriele Basilico (Milan, Italy, 1944 - 2013)

Born in Milan in 1944, after graduating in architecture from Milan Polytechnic, he decided to focus on photography on an ongoing basis. 

From 1978-1980, he launched his first important research focusing mainly on the transformations of the contemporary landscape, for which he was invited to participate, as the only Italian, in the Mission Photographique de la DATAR.

In 1990, he received the "Prix Mois de la Photo" for the project Porti di Mare.

His fame grew even more international thanks to the project on the city of Beirut, devastated by a fifteen-year civil war. Numerous exhibitions and initiatives, both national and international, were to see him take part.

Guided by a profound interest in architecture and all the artefacts that have shaped cities over time, he has chosen the rigour of the documentary style to narrate the constant process of stratification that shapes them, in a work of investigation of the relationship between man and built space that has lasted almost forty years.

Within his vast body of work reflecting on the transformations of urbanised territories in the transition from the industrial to the post-industrial era, the theme of  the city as a complex and refined product of economy and history occupies a central place.